The invention relates to the diagnosis of neurodegenerative conditions.
Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a major public health concern for the aging population and the third most expensive illness in the United States, behind heart disease and cancer. Approximately 4 million Americans have AD. The prevalence of the disease in persons over 65 years of age is one in ten and increases to nearly half in those over 85. The cost of AD care is estimated at over $100 billion dollars per annum. AD is presently incurable and the causes remain uncertain. Scientists working to determine the cause and pathology of AD have identified various contributing factors. It is believed that cerebral accumulation and toxicity of the β-amyloid protein (Aβ) as are causative events in AD pathology. The determinative method of diagnosis of AD remains the postmortem detection of cerebral plaques by autopsy. Antemortem diagnosis of the disease is limited to clinical techniques with poor reproducibility, specificity, and sensitivity. Currently, there are no means to detect the AD disease process prior to the emergence of clinical signs and symptoms of the disease.